By Crime Historian Laura James, Esquire (c) 2005-14 WELCOME to my study of historic true crime, a literary blog where the chairs rest at the intersection of history, journalism, law, and murder, and the shelves are filled with the finest true crime literature. STEAL FROM THIS LIBRARY AND IT'S PISTOLS AT DAWN.

Unearthing Belle's Children

Lucy, Myrtle, and Phillip have been dead for a century, but their bodies will bear mute witness to their fates. Were they the victims of the Lady Bluebeard? Did Belle Gunness murder her children, stage the scene, and escape?

The scope of the new DNA investigation of serial killer Belle Gunness has now expanded. Last week, the remains of three of her children were exhumed from a suburban Chicago cemetery. As it turns out, when Belle's body (?) was exhumed earlier in the year, some extra bones, belonging to children, were found inside. Either the bones were mixed up when the four of them were buried or Belle was an even more prolific and evil killer than we already knew she was.

I agree, Laura! I think the fascination we have with true crime and individual murderers is a fascination based on a quest to understand. Yes, people who don't ordinarily kill (like us) can in certain circumstances be driven to kill: self-defense, that sort of thing--but our interest in true crime and in people like Belle is, I think, based upon the desire to understand a monster. A woman who looked like us, but was so not us! It disturbs and troubles us. We want to stare at her photo, we want to read all that we can--so that we get a glimpse into this woman for instance. Into what made her different.
We want to understand even though we won't be able to because we can't. But we look and we read and we think anyway--because she was so different and that in itself is what our fascination is based on I believe.

NewspaperArchiveMy most very favorite site on the internet. Millions of digitized, text-searchable newspapers from across the U.S. and the world. If my computer somehow froze up and I had access to only one website, this would be it.

Paper of Record Another pay-to-play website that features searchable historic newspapers. Canada is particularly well represented in its collection.